To Be Free Of His Shadow
by Warriorsong
Summary: REVERSIONED. Set after the Events of the last episode, Kyou loses himself in the madness of a rainy night.


**To Be Free Of His Shadow**

R E V E R S I O N E D

A Fruits Baskets Fan Fiction

By Nicholas Paul Clark (Warriorsong)

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I don't blame Shishou for what he did. Nor do I blame Tohru for her reaction. I didn't expect it from the damn Nezumi, nor did I expect Kagura to be there, considering she knows my feelings on the issue. I don't expect pity, nor do I want it, but it seems that even from Tohru, the one I least expect to understand, I shall only receive understanding. The other Jyuunishi, at least they know the pain and burden the curse carries, always guarding your heart, afraid of the touch that comforts and condemns. I am aware of who I am, what I can become, and for me more than the others, its sickens and disgusts me to my core. It drove my mother to her death, and drove my father away. But, I will become someone; someone fit to call Kazuma-shihan father.

I suppose the cat nature conflicts with the human beast, independence versus the need for the easing touch and nearness of another. Kisa opened her heart after it was closed by narrow-mindedness and cruelty. She had family. But in my heart I see that family, the same one that could accept as the one that pushes me away. In the end, we only have ourselves, fleeting moments of comfort around a cheerful supper, between the storms of tears and loneliness. Interspersed in the darkness with the lightening of rage.

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Kyou rolled over under his blanket, his orange hair the only part of his body shown from beneath the soft wool. The beating rain and screaming thunder pounded in his ears as the lethargy made his mind and body heavy. His thoughts flowed like syrup, slow and melancholy, opposed to the usual brash speed. His arm itched beneath his beads, white and blue against the skin and pale in the half-light cast though the weave by the lightening sky.

Not a week had passed since they had come back from the main house of the Souma family. Still he didn't know what had happened between his cousins, Tohru and the head of their misanthropic family. He had hid his worry behind the demands of food, yet his eyes followed Tohru, saw as she absently rubbed her head when she believed they weren't looking.

What had he done? He, Akito, the one who overshadowed their lives like a spectre demanding blind obedience. How many had he hurt to solidify his place, how many had he broken? Even the older Jyuunishi feared him, Hatori understandably, yet even Shigure and Ayame, idiot fool yaoi, that he was, hardened their faces around the waifish sadist. Momiji, Hiro and Kisa avoided him at all costs and even Hatsuhara, black or white, would not venture near the central compound. And that shit Yuki? Like a baby he had heard him cry out in his sleep, pleading his nightmare ghosts to leave him be.

And himself? He knew the family head had been there that night, he could smell him in that cursed third from, that true form. A cloying dull scent of death, mould and wet shadows. And it was then that Kyou knew that Akito had a hand in the downfall, casting him into that prison of flesh, and as he wanted, the beast had dragged Tohru in.

But Akito was wrong. In her own way, compassionate, even to a fault, Tohru was almost as strong as Kagura, accepting something she couldn't change as merely another emotional aspect rather than something to be feared and cast aside in hatred.

What made this near-death ghoul believe he had the right to play his own family like puppets in his own soap opera? What evil possessed his heart? Fear of death, fear of life, or the fear that they wouldn't even remember his passing when he had gone.

Kyou scratched his wrist. Damned shitty rain.

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The gentle tapping of rain on rice-paper had lulled Shigure to sleep, his head lolled backwards as he sat before his laptop, the rainbowed letters of his screensaver 'High School Girls!' spinning erratically before him. The room was warm, the small heater by his feet left on in his slumber. The novelist's glasses eschewed dangerously as he rubbed his nose. Content, he drifted back into slumber, before shortly rattling himself awake with a massive sneeze. Dazed, he saw his glasses bounce from the sliding panel across the desk. Shigure rubbed his eyes before twisting a finger in his ear, and reaching absentmindedly with the other hand for his cigarettes. A shock of thunder ripped the silence as he contemplated the awakening. Something was amiss, a raising of hair on the back of his neck, an extrasensory ripple somewhere below consciousness. And it struck him, the far off baying of dogs, echoing over the forest and the stench that hung in the air like the heat from near his feet. It smelt of dead flesh, uncovered and worm ended. He had smelt it before, worse that Hatori's breath in the morning. It was the dark reek of revenge and wet fur. He pulled his yukata into order as he stood.

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Mindless but of its single purpose, long legs guiding it through the darkness, its friend, its ally, its heart. Anger, deep and boiling, a primeval hate tearing against the bonds humanity and morality had placed on it. It drove it on, through underbrush, past bush and below bough, the wet sticky dark at its feet clinging to its legs and its fur. Nostrils rippled and long, lank ears perked, as the dark eyes, crimson purple turning to the side. And like the death of innocence in the night, it was gone.

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Shigure slid the door slowly, his breath quiet as he peered into the room before him. The briefly flashing sky showed the damp wood before the balcony entrance, doors cast open wide and raked off their hinges, a small circle of solidite and white quartz pale in the after glare. And Shigure cursed, sliding the door behind him as he turned from the ruin, his stomach rolling as his nostrils breathed deep on the evil vapours.

His thoughts turned to the telephone and the warning he needed to impart.

"Shigure-san," a voice mumbled, the precluding rolling of door tracks lost in his momentary panic, "what's that smell?"

Shigure turned to Tohru, slipping his goof face on to full affect, "Tohru-chan, you should be asleep, its just a burst pipe downstairs," and with an Ayame inspired flourish, he placed his hands on his hips and proclaimed, brandishing his fan in the air, "yet, fear not, for I, Shigure, shall avail!"

Tohru blinked vacantly, her hair dishevelled and her pyjama shirt untucked, before she turned and went back to her room, the door sliding shut behind her.

Shigure sighed. He hadn't lied insofar, as she really should have been asleep, and it did smell like a burst pipe.

He turned, bumping into an equally dishevelled but thoroughly awake Yuki, silver hair and indigo eyes bright in his awakening.

"Shigure, there is not a burst pipe." Pure statement of fact, yet said without judgement. At present.

Shigure frowned. "Call Kazuma and Ha-chan. Our little Kyon-kyon has gone for a walk."

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Hatori pulled the door open, the scent assailing his senses like a blow. And the sight followed, plastered everywhere, the sanguine hue of quickly drying life. Kazuma and Shigure recoiled beside him. They had followed the dark odour to this place, chasing it from the outskirts of town where Shigure had met them, to the inner-sanctum of the Souma Family.

The young man knelt before them, his hands shaking as he looked at them, his eyes glazed at the red that caked them and in turn covered the majority of his chest and face, blending in counterpoint with his fiery hair.

"I, I, I..."

Kyou could but mumble at the body belonging to Souma Akito as it lay before him.

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Disclaimers

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Fruits Basket is copyright by King Records and other individuals. Of which I am not one.

If any of this information is wrong, my most humble apologies. No copyright infringement is intended, this is merely a work of fan fiction. I am in no way affiliated to any of these companies and people and what not. Thanks for reading.

Written 15th February 2003. Reversioned 3rd Jan 2008. Although to be honest, I didn't change anything from the original release. I hated that smug bastard Akito, lording over the others with his cocky attitude (cocky – rooster get it, sigh, pun fully intended). The real insult was how he callously and deliberately used that power to punish someone whose only difference to him was a slight of birth and a bit of bad luck, for no other reason than that he could and perceived it to be his right. I believe the word is tyrant. Despot would work as well. I don't advocate murder in any way, I'm merely stating that in some cases, it is a justifiable option with the bounds of law and due process. Hence Kyou's remorse and shock, he knew he didn't have the right.


End file.
